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The Magical Fantasy Dream Castle Retreat

Guys, I’ll be honest with you. Right now I’m struggling. I’ve had a bad cold/cough on top of impossible work deadlines all month, and that came after a hectic June and…to be honest, this has been going on for a while. Luckily, I only have to get through this week and then it’s on to Internet-detox-and-nature-with-family time. But that’ll be over soon enough. I need a better solution. So I give you… THE MAGICAL FANTASY DREAM CASTLE RETREAT (There’s no picture here. You’ll see why in a moment.) One day, when I’m as rich as J.K. Rowling (hey, a writer can dream), I’ll build this castle. It’ll be in the mountains and on a fjord at the same time, with a deep dark forest behind and a quiet cove in front. There will be horses and a sailboat and a canoe and a hammock and a hedge maze. The mountains will have caves and high passes and valleys beyond. The forest will have trails (but not too many) and brooks and glades. There will be mighty trees, and a treehouse worthy of an elf or an Ewok, and a magical white deer (or maybe it’s a unicorn) that can only be glimpsed on a full-moon night. Inside, there will be the library from Beauty and the Beast. There will be a grand staircase and stained-glass windows. The bedroom will have a four-poster bed with a canopy, and a window seat, and a balcony. The bathroom will have a hot tub.…

A Creative Interlude

Good morning! Do you ever have those times when you really should be working on something, but something else comes along that sounds like way more fun? Or, like, it doesn’t matter if anything ever actually does get done, because planning is fun? And shopping for supplies, and picturing doing it, and… …anyway, this is me right now. And what I’d like to be doing, at least theoretically, is sewing. Not sure what exactly has brought this on. It’s probably a combination of having too many writing projects going, the fact that I hate half my wardrobe, and the fact that I used to sew all the time, but haven’t touched my machine in four…maybe five…years. So first I went into the planning stage. My planning stage mostly involved reading tons of blogs about upcycling clothing and starting a Pinterest board. I’ve also checked out some sewing pattern books from the library. Somewhere in the Pinterest stage I went from upcycling clothes to just making clothes from scratch. That might be because I actually did a couple of upcycling projects. The kids and me made slouch hats and arm warmers from old sweaters and hot glue, and I also took an overly large t-shirt I got from giving blood and turned it into a workout tank top. Upcycling urge conquered, I guess. So now we’re on the sewing from scratch phase. At the end of last week, the small, somewhat mobile one and I hit our local Joann’s, where I…

TV Shows and Endings

This is actually Siri’s scheduled slot, but since I will be out of town in two weeks, we decided to switch. So that meant coming up with a topic rather quickly (a few hours!). Since Castle was canceled, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about TV shows lately. TV shows that had either crap endings or died too soon in particular. It has gotten to the point where I am terrified to get invested in a TV show because it could end prematurely and end on a cliffhanger. Or just end, period. There were a bunch of TV shows coming out this past fall that I would have loved to check out (Minority Report, Limitless, Quantico, for an example) but I worried that they’d get the ax and/or end on a damn cliffhanger. Those are absolutely the worst, because let’s face it, the chances for a revival are so slim. And it’s heartbreaking. (Of those three, I believe Quantico is the last one standing.) So, let’s get on with the list, shall we? In no particular order, they are: 1) Forever. Canceled after the first season. Had an interesting premise — a man who works as a medical examiner and is immortal. This drew me in because 1) it wasn’t the average police procedural show, and 2) why is Henry immortal and can he find a way to finally die? Plus there was a glimmer of a potential romance with the woman he works with, Jo. I don’t know the final resolution because as soon…

See the Positives

Two weeks ago, I spent $560 on my car. The intake manifold was leaking, among other issues, and I had to get through emissions to register her–so I had a a deadline. I barely got her back, and the AC went out. In case you haven’t heard, it’s a really bad time to be without AC in my neck of the woods. That cost me $322—and they’re not confident they fixed the problem, as they’re not sure how they got it working. Last week Erin talked about what it’s like, living mostly without pain. Putting nearly a thousand dollars into my car over the course of a month has made me think about what it’s like, having a life without lack. People like to complain about their jobs, and their bills, and how their paychecks are gone before they even hit the bank account, and I think it’s important to get that frustration out. I also think it’s important to remember that jobs are good to have. Lots of people out there would love to have a job. Though most of us would love not to need a job, until that awesome circumstance comes about, it’s good to have a job. Bills are good to have. Bills mean (probably…?) you’ve received something you wanted. I whine a lot every summer about my electric bill. When summer hits and we start running the AC all the time, my electric bill quadruples. See above link to the weather. But you know what?…

Trigeminal Neuralgia: One-Year Update

Well, actually, it’s 11 months, as my 1-year anniversary of my diagnosis is July 17th, but “One-Year Update” sounded better than “Eleven-Month Update.” So, for the most part, I’ve been doing really well. I had an interesting moment while reading an article on one of those list websites. The title caught my eye: The Top 10 Most Horrible Medical Conditions Known to Man or something like that. Guess what #10 was? TRIGEMINAL NEURALGIA. I’m like, “No kidding.” They don’t call it the “suicide disease” for nothing. I am not 100% pain-free, which is okay. Going from 100% excruciating pain while conscious to about 95% pain free while conscious is a BIG, huge improvement. Times I still have pain: when it’s going to rain (this is eerie — I can predict when storms are coming before the weather people), if any kind of wind or breeze touches my face (so fans are bad), when the water hits my face in the shower, and about an hour to an hour and a half before the next dose of my pill. Times I’ve used a loopy pill in the past month: zero. Six months? Maybe once or twice. Compare that to almost every day. Things I enjoy now that I’m not in so much pain anymore: photography. Writing. Sunlight (used to be a trigger). Camping (although the campfires can trigger pain still). Stress is just stress now, not stress+pain. That’s a good thing. The medication does wonders. It is really a life changer. I’ve had…

Life’s a Strain

I’ve pulled something in my back. I have this spot–it’s on the right side of my back, not quite in “lower” back territory but not much higher–and from time to time it gets aggravated. Every six months or so it gets really bad, like “can’t stand up straight” sort of bad. Muscle relaxants and pain killers have little to no effect, and even massages haven’t proven terrible useful in fixing things. It’s very fun, let me tell you. Especially when one has to pick 20 and 40-pound wiggly things up on a regular basis. It started hurting last Wednesday-ish. It peaked Friday/Saturday, and now is on its way back to normal, though it still hurts. I did manage kickboxing this morning, though it hurt more for a while. My internet searches tell me back pain is the most common pain experienced by adults in the United States. 80% was the stat I saw, though I don’t know how scientific that is. Bad posture and too much sedentary time at computers and watching the TV and what have you. So what do you do when your job consists of you needing to be on the computer for significant lengths of time? Sitting is definitely a problem right now. I’ve switched my computer chair out for one of the hard, straight-back dining room chairs, which has helped some, but even as little as 15-20 minutes sitting at the computer causes everything to flare again, even if things were feeling pretty good. It’s…

Adventures in Marketing CITY OF HOPE AND RUIN

It’s been almost a month since City of Hope and Ruin was released, and guys, I’m discovering that the marketing phase of a book can be pretty intense. I’ve been doing some sort of promo (or networking for future promo) just about every day, while trying not to annoy my social media friends and followers too much. That’s a lot of brain cycles. Especially because it’s all new to me. I’ve been learning about book marketing for quite a while now, have done some already for Turtleduck Press, but this is a whole ‘nother level. Of course, it helps immensely that there are two of us — our marketing power is doubled. Or even more, because Kit and I are in vastly different parts of North America, so we can each hit our respective local bookstores/libraries/conventions. We even managed to co-host a virtual launch party on Facebook. (We had lots of Q&As and some fun discussion, which you can still read at the link.) It felt surprisingly festive, and was a great way to celebrate our release date together despite the best attempts of geography to keep us apart. I also held a local launch party at my favourite bookstore — one of those “dream come true” moments (except that Kit couldn’t be there). How did it go? Here’s the short version: In actual words: I did a reading, then a Q&A (and people asked great questions), and finished off with a signing. I have also had not one but…

Standard Operating Procedure

I’m office manager at a school for children with autism. That title may be a little misleading, as I don’t really manage the office. I am the office. Just me, little old me, and the director, who couldn’t find a pen if it was in his pocket (it usually is, and it’s usually not his) and who generally has about seventeen things going at once, none of which in any way involves following those pesky ~rules~ set up by HR or Payroll or Accounts Payable.† With any school, it’s important that no matter who is sick or absent or distracted, things keep going. When you’re talking about a school for kids on the spectrum, it becomes a bit more imperative. Breaks in routine are Not. Good. So recently when the boss was telling someone how I’m awesome, that I’m office manager, receptionist, nurse, occasional janitor, sometime maintenance tech, and all the while somehow manage to keep him mostly in line so HR doesn’t come hunting him with torches, and that without me the whole school would fall down–I appreciated it, but I also decided it should not all depend on me. I’m human. I get sick. And sometimes I need a vacation. So I started collecting my checklists and notes on how things work into a Standard Operating Procedure Manual. Kind of like this except not so formal. So if I ever needed to, you know, not go to work, the entire school wouldn’t fall down while I lolled around in…

It Got Better

I was cruising along Facebook this afternoon and found a video Adam Lambert had done called “It Got Better.” He’d originally done one some time ago for It Gets Better, but this is a new one. In it, he talks about his struggles with being gay and feeling alone because of it, and how he always strove to be himself. Here is the video if you want to see it. Damn, I love that guy. And his message. Granted, I’m not gay or struggling with being gay, but I have had struggles of my own. Recently I participated in #AprilLove2016, which was a month-long challenge to write love letters every day according to specific word or concept. It changed every day. And love letters didn’t have to be actual letters, they could be pictures, or paintings, or collages…whatever you wanted to create. I managed 14 days of 30, due to wrist tendonitis catching up with me (I was writing longhand in a journal for most of them, and for a few posted them to my blog). I really wanted to complete all 30, but doing14 of them was fun. By the end of the month, I was in the throes of a flare and could not even consider writing anything longhand. Maybe, once I feel better, I could try to the rest here and there. Anyway, one of the topics that got me thinking was “Dear Younger Me.” Writing that brought back so many memories of my teenage years and…

End of Project Jitters

City of Hope and Ruin is out! Hooray! It’s out and it’s lovely and people have been so great about telling us how excited they are or how much they liked the book and we are very thankful for all you lovely people. And now I am free! BWHAHAHA. I mean, of course, there’s still lots to do on CoHaR. Marketing things, reviewers, guest posts and blog tours, the Goodreads giveaway which starts tomorrow, etc. We’ll be at it for months. But the frenetic pace of the past year, and specifically the last five months, is done with. FREEDOM. Of course, now that I find myself with freedom, I once again find myself confronted with a slew of options. What to work on now? Do I work on anything? Do I catch up on all the reading I didn’t do while ear-deep in revisions? At the beginning of the year, I made myself a spreadsheet, and on said spreadsheet I made a list of all the writing projects I wanted to accomplish this year, as well as what I felt was a reasonable amount of time to expect them to be done, and which months would include what projects, etc. Let me tell you how that’s gone thus far. I had a bunch of “smaller” projects slated for January-March. Marketing tweaks, short projects, etc. Not one of them has gotten done. I had that I’d finish the mostly finished draft of a different story March-May. In my infinite free time…

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Category: Bloggish Things